Changing the culture

Washington Post: Just like corporations or neighborhoods, branches of science have their own internal cultures. Over the past several decades, for example, nuclear physicists have grown accustomed to working closely with the federal government. Not only does the government provide much funding for their research, it also provides them with security guidelines, to which few physicists object.
Biologists and geneticists, by contrast, have historically been more independent. With much of their funding coming from the booming biotech sector and with, until recently, no clear national security threats implicit in their work, the federal government had little interest in regulating these scientists. This suited biologists just fine.
All that is rapidly changing. Since the anthrax attacks of 2001, Congress has authorized hundreds of thousands of dollars of new money to be spent on biodefense research. At the same time, concern about the security implications of new research has grown. The difficulty that would-be regulators face is both cultural -- biologists are not used to working within security guidelines -- and technical: Some of the most exciting advances in genetic science could be used either to cure diseases or to invent new, incurable diseases. The same technology that could launch a bioterrorism attack, in other words, could also be used to defend against one. Although rules can be written governing proper treatment of laboratory materials, regulating knowledge isn't as simple as simply restricting the sale of plutonium.
International science
In this context, the new report from the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, is both welcome and unusual. It is welcome because it is sophisticated, recognizing the needs of biologists for access to information, the realities of international science -- experiments forbidden here will be carried out elsewhere -- and the real dangers. It is unusual because it calls, in its conclusion, for biologists and geneticists to "work together with government agencies to develop communication channels" -- meaning that they should learn to regulate themselves, to incorporate security debates into their own discussions of research and to communicate those debates to the government. The report recommends, in essence, a cultural change, saying that "scientists have an obligation to inculcate these moral duties in the next generation, both by example and by specific education." This was the right time to raise this largely unexamined issue, and this is the right approach.